Mr. Stevens Timeline and Summary

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• In August 1956, Stevens agrees to take up his employer's offer of a vacation. He embarks on a road trip through the West Country to see Miss Kenton, a former co-worker who has recently sent him a letter.
• By the afternoon of the first day, he has arrived in Salisbury after stopping to enjoy a view.
• It's now evening and Stevens is staying at a guesthouse in Salisbury. He reminisces about certain high points in his father's career as a butler.
• Stevens wakes up very early on the morning of the second day and ruminates over past events.
• His thoughts turn to the early '20s, when Miss Kenton and his father arrived to work at Darlington Hall.
• He remembers numerous instances when Miss Kenton accused his father of not doing his job well.
• A couple months after their arrival, Stevens Sr. fell while delivering a tea tray to the summerhouse, where Lord Darlington was waiting with his guests.
• Lord Darlington called Stevens aside and recommended that he lighten his father's workload.
• Stevens thinks about his road trip again. The morning before, he had stopped to let a hen pass by, and the woman who owned the hen had thanked him.
• Stevens thinks about a conference in March 1923. In the days leading up to the conference, Lord Darlington asked Stevens to give Mr. Cardinal a talk about the birds and the bees. Stevens never managed to go through with it.
• When a French ambassador, Monsieur Dupont, arrived, Stevens overheard an American senator voicing suspicions to him.
• On the first day of the conference, Stevens's father took ill and had to be taken to his room.
• During the conference, Stevens periodically received updates about his father's condition.
• At the final banquet of the conference, Stevens found out his father was dead, but he kept working.
• Back on the road trip, Stevens's radiator overheats. He stops at a house, where the chauffeur repairs the car. The chauffeur asks Stevens if he knew Darlington. Stevens lies and says he did not.
• In the afternoon, Stevens makes a stop at Mortimer's Pond in Dorset.
• By nightfall, Stevens has arrived at the Coach and Horses inn outside Taunton, Somerset.
• The next morning he has tea at a different inn.
• Stevens recalls the time when Lord Darlington asked him to fire two Jewish maids, and Miss Kenton's objections to this.
• By evening, Stevens runs out of gas in Moscombe.
• He walks until he gets to the Taylors' house. They offer him a place to stay for the night.
• Stevens remembers a time Miss Kenton caught him reading a romance novel.
• Friends of the Taylors arrive that night and have a conversation about politics. They also mistake him for someone important.
• Stevens remembers a time when one of Lord Darlington's guests quizzed him about politics.
• Stevens gets a lift and some extra gas from Dr. Carlisle and continues on his road trip.
• By lunchtime he is in Little Compton, Cornwall.
• Stevens's thoughts turn to an evening when Mr. Cardinal unexpectedly showed up at Darlington Hall to intercept a meeting between Lord Darlington and the German ambassador, among others.
• On the same evening, Miss Kenton announced her decision to leave Darlington Hall to get married.
• After a couple of days, Stevens arrives in Weymouth.
• He reflects back on his meeting with Miss Kenton a couple days before.
• By the end of the novel he is sitting on a pier in Weymouth. A kind stranger offers him some advice.